This document summarizes research on using the App Inventor platform to teach computational thinking skills to high school students in Colombia. It found that App Inventor helped students understand programming and improved their skills in areas like abstraction and logical thinking. A survey of 20 students found most agreed App Inventor helped them understand programming. The researchers developed mobile apps in App Inventor to teach concepts like parallelism and evaluated them using the CodeMaster platform. They hope to design an educational model using App Inventor projects to better teach abstraction and procedures prior to object-oriented languages.

1. An experience with the App Inventor
in CS0 for the development of the
STEM didactics.
José Alfredo Martínez Valdés
Institución Educativa Sagrada Familia
Palmira (Valle del Cauca), Colombia
jamartinezv@sagradafamiliapalmira.edu.co
Salamanca,Spain
October 24 - 26, 2018
Nathalia Andrea Martínez Ijají
Universidad Autónoma de Occidente
Cali, Colombia
nathalia_a.martinez@uao.edu.co
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2. PROGRAMA O SE PROGRAMADO,Dougie
Rushkoff
"Necesito crear mi propio sistema o seré esclavizado por el de otro
hombre“,William Blake
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3. "We teach elementary physics to children not to become
physicists, but they live in a world governed by the laws of
physics. On the same way, they should learn Computer Science
from a young age, because they live in a world where computing
is everywhere."
Motivation
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4. Main Objective
To find methodological elements from the use
of app inventor to contribute to the
development of a specific didactics of
computer science in pre-university education
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5. Goals:
To establish the profile students’ interested in an
introductory programming course.
To identify the characteristics of applications of
academic and educational interests for the students of
ninth grade at IESAFA.
To develop mobile applications using App Inventor that
obtain the highest level of performance in CTs (Dr.
Scratch and CodeMaster)
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6. Computational thinking skills
Parallelism
Logical thinking
Flow control
Interactivity
Representation of Information
Abstraction
Synchronization28/1/19 6

7. Essential dispositions or attitudes of
Computational Thinking
Confidence in the management of complexity
Persistence when working with difficult problems
Tolerance of ambiguity
Ability to deal with unstructured problems (open-
ended)
Ability to communicate and work with others to reach
a common goal or solution
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8. Create the design and functionality of the application
App Inventor presents a first stage that consists in the
design of the application; which identify the different
available elements, as an optional he/she can re-named it ,
and covering it with some characteristics.
Implementation of the elements
through blocks
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9. Computer Science interest has been extended worldwide to
children and adolescents. However, it is unclear which
educational method should be used. Teachers need some
guides to approaching this task
The problem
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10. 20 students (Participants)
60% men and 40% women,
95% between 14 and 16 years old,
20% would like to study a STEM degree and
30% with a technical profile
Results
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11. Results
Statistical
measure
Dimensions of computational thinking*
Total
SC UI NC EV OP CON AB
Mean 1.00 2.33 3.00 1.89 1.78 0.33 0 10.33
Std. dev. 0 1.32 0 1.17 0.67 1 0 2.83
Median 1 3 3 2 2 0 0 11
Mode 1 3 3 3 2 0 0 12
Minimum 1 0 3 0 0 0 0 7
Maximum 1 3 3 3 2 3 0 15
SC: Screens, UI: User interface, NC: Naming of components, EV: Events, OP:
Operators, CON: Connectivity, AB: Abstraction of procedures
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12. We also analyze the utility of App Inventor to improve your
coding skills.
We observe that the platform offers students the possibility
of observing the rubric of evaluation of their projects,
indicating the characteristics of what each item should have
evaluated to obey its respective level
(0 - 3).
However, it does not indicate how it can be done, nor does it
make an explicit distinction between the evaluated elements
that correspond to the design, and those elements that
correspond to the implementation or coding.
Acceptance of CodeMaster
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13. Kind of answers on App Inventor
usefulness (N=20)Using App Inventor
has helped me
understand what
programming is
# of
students
%
Somewhat agree 10 50
In disagreement 1 5
Neither agree nor
disagree
1 5
Totally agree 8 4028/1/19 13

14. Current and Expected Contributions
We have evaluated the impact of collaborative learning and The
development of TCs, the students' opinions of using App Inventor
as the first programming language in pre-university education.
The impact on the automatic evaluation of App Inventor projects
using CodeMaster and the acceptance of App Inventor students.
In addition, we hope to design an educational action proposal that
will serve as a model to develop projects in App Inventor with high
evaluation in the handling of abstraction and procedures as a
language prior to programming languages oriented to objects.
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15. Current and Expected Contributions
App with abstraction evaluated with
performance level 3 in CodeMaster
https://bit.ly/2D7fePM
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16. Thank you very much!
For your attention
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